What You Missed This Week in Video Games

“Game On” is The Fly’s weekly recap of the stories powering up or beating down video game stocks.

‘HELLDIVERS’ DRIVES UK SALES: Earlier this week, Gamesindustry.biz’s Christopher Dring reported that U.K. games sales for the month of March rose 26% year-over-year, with Q1 game sales in the U.K. up 7%. Dring cited strong sales of Sony‘s (SONY) multiplayer shooter “Helldivers 2,” which after eight weeks of release is now trending ahead of the sales of Sony’s 2023 hit “Spider-Man 2.” Meanwhile, Capcom’s (CCOEY) “Dragon’s Dogma 2” outsold Square Enix’s (SQNXF) “Final Fantasy VII Rebirth” in their debut month, although it was “close,” according to Dring.

On the hardware side, total console sales in the U.K. in March rose 22% from February but down 15% from March 2023. All consoles saw a decline in sales year-over-year, Dring noted, with PlayStation 5 sales down 9%, Nintendo Switch (NTDOY) sales falling 20%, and Xbox Series X/S (MSFT) slipping 18%.

XBOX SHAKE-UP: Last week, Windows Central’s Jez Corden reported that, after 26 years at Microsoft, Kareem Choudhry, corporate vice president of Xbox Emerging Technologies, will be leaving the company. Choudhry worked on some of the Xbox maker’s most cutting-edge tech products, including Xbox Cloud Gaming and recent AI efforts. The move will precede a wider Xbox leadership reorganization, with some team members getting promotions and new employees incoming, the author noted.

According to Corden, the broader leadership overhaul is designed to streamline processes and help the Xbox maker accelerate plans for its subscription service Xbox Game Pass, its hardware, and more. Meanwhile, the company said in an internal memo that it will be moving its AI team underneath the hardware ecosystem in an effort to accelerate innovation in that space.

TAKE-TWO UPGRADE: On Monday, Citi upgraded Take-Two Interactive (TTWO) to Buy from Neutral with a price target of $200, up from $170. There were three key unknowns Monday for the shares: the timing of the release of “Grand Theft Auto VI,” the magnitude of “GTA VI” bookings and trends within the mobile portfolio, the analyst tells investors in a research note. However, at prevailing stock levels Citi sees a bull case of $235 and a bear case of $130, akin to a favorable 4:1 risk-reward, the analyst tells investors in a research note. The firm believes timing of the next “GTA” release “is a very real but a manageable risk.”

OTHER STORIES TO WATCH:

• Capcom said last week that “Dragon’s Dogma 2” had already sold over 2.5M units in its first few weeks (read more)
• NetEase (NTES) strength in Hong Kong has been attributed to reports of a Blizzard partnership in China resuming (read more)
• GameStop (GME) said that COO Nir Patel will leave the company (read more)